Hyacinth nodded. “I had wondered about that. Neither you nor your father has much of a Mediterranean look about you.”
Gareth smiled tightly. He could not speak for the baron, but there was a very good reason why he did not look as if he carried any Italian blood.
“Well,” Hyacinth said, looking back down at the sheet of paper she had laid on his desk. “If she was from the northeast, it stands to reason that she might have lived near the Slovene border and thus been familiar with the language. Or at least familiar enough to pen two sentences in it.”
“I can’t imagine that she thought anyone here in England might be able to translate it, though.”
“Exactly,” she said, making an animated motion of agreement. When it became apparent that Gareth had no idea what she was talking about, she continued with, “If you wanted to make a clue particularly difficult, wouldn’t you write it in the most obscure language possible?”
“It’s really a pity I don’t speak Chinese,” he murmured.
She gave him a look—either of impatience or irritation; he wasn’t sure which—then continued with, “I am also convinced that this must be the final clue. Anyone who had got this far would be forced to expend quite a lot of energy, and quite possibly expense as well to obtain a translation. Surely she wouldn’t force someone to go through the trouble twice.”
Gareth looked down at the unfamiliar words, chewing on his lower lip as he pondered this.
“Don’t you agree?” Hyacinth pressed.
He looked up, shrugging. “Well, you would.”
Her mouth fell open. “What do you mean? That’s simply not—” She stopped, reflecting on his words. “Very well, I would. But I think we can both agree that, for better or for worse, I am a bit more diabolical than a typical female. Or male, for that matter,” she muttered.
Gareth smiled wryly, wondering if he ought to be made more nervous by the phrase, “for better or for worse.”
“Do you think your grandmother would be as devious as, er…”—she cleared her throat—“I?” Hyacinth seemed to lose a little steam toward the end of the question, and Gareth suddenly saw in her eyes that she was not as collected as she wished for him to believe.
“I don’t know,” he said quite honestly. “She passed away when I was rather young. My recollections and perceptions are those of a seven-year-old boy.”
“Well,” she said, tapping her fingers against the desk in a revealingly nervous gesture. “We can certainly begin our search for a speaker of Slovene.” She rolled her eyes as she added, somewhat dryly, “There must be one somewhere in London.”
“One would think,” he murmured, mostly just to egg her on. He shouldn’t do it; he should be far wiser by now, but there was something so…entertaining about Hyacinth when she was determined.
And as usual, she did not disappoint. “In the meantime,” she stated, her voice marvelously matter-of-fact, “I believe we should return to Clair House.”
“And search it from top to bottom?” he asked, so politely that it had to be clear that he thought she was mad.
“Of course not,” she said with a scowl.
He almost smiled. That was much more like her.
“But it seems to me,” she added, “that the jewels must be hidden in her bedchamber.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Where else would she put them?”
“Her dressing room,” he suggested, tilting his head to the side, “the drawing room, the attic, the butler’s closet, the guest bedroom, the other guest bedroom—”
“But where,” she cut in, looking rather annoyed with his sarcasm, “would make the most sense? Thus far, she has been keeping everything to the areas of the house least visited by your grandfather. Where better than her bedchamber?”
He eyed her thoughtfully and for long enough to make her blush. Finally, he said, “We know he visited her there at least twice.”
She blinked. “Twice?”
“My father and my father’s younger brother. He died at Trafalgar,” he explained, even though she hadn’t asked.
“Oh.” That seemed to take the winds out of her sails. At least momentarily. “I’m sorry.”
Gareth shrugged. “It was a long time ago, but thank you.”
She nodded slowly, looking as if she wasn’t quite sure what to say now. “Right,” she finally said. “Well.”
“Right,” he echoed.
“Well.”
“Well,” he said softly.
“Oh, hang it all!” she burst out. “I cannot stand this. I am not made to sit idly by and brush things under the rug.”
Gareth opened his mouth to speak, not that he had any idea of what to say, but Hyacinth wasn’t done.
“I know I should be quiet, and I know I should leave well enough alone, but I can’t. I just can’t do it.” She looked at him, and she looked like she wanted to grab his shoulders and shake. “Do you understand?”
“Not a word,” he admitted.
“I have to know!” she cried out. “I have to know why you asked me to marry you.”
It was a topic he did not wish to revisit. “I thought you said you didn’t come here to discuss my father.”
“I lied,” she said. “You didn’t really believe me, did you?”
“No,” he realized. “I don’t suppose I did.”
“I just—I can’t—” She wrung her hands together, looking more pained and tortured than he’d ever seen her. A few strands of her hair had come loose from its pinnings, probably the result of her anxious gestures, and her color was high.